Work Text:
April 2017
Marc shuffled onto the ice, carrying the yellow spinal board with his partner Jean. This part was always awkward. How fast could you walk on the ice before you put yourself in danger too?
After what felt like minutes in the eerie hush of the arena, Marc and Jean made it to the crumpled form of Shane Hollander. He looked younger than his twenty-six years. But Marc found that most people looked younger and more fragile when they’d been knocked out.
As Jean did a pat down, Marc leaned over the hockey player to see if he would regain consciousness. “Shane?” he asked.
Hollander’s eyelids twitched and fluttered open.
A shadow crossed Shane’s face. Usually players knew to move out of the way. He guessed sometimes they were like nosy civilians and just needed watch the aftermath.
Marc ignored the intruder and kept his focus on the injured player who needed his attention. “Don’t move, all right? Just stay still. We’re going to take you off the ice.”
“Hollander?”
That was Ilya Rozanov’s voice. Why was Rozanov asking about Shane Hollander? Why wasn’t he back on his bench?
“Ilya?” slurred Marc’s patient.
Marc raised his eyebrows. Had Shane Hollander just called Ilya Rozanov by his first name?
Marc had been around the NHL and played enough hockey to know that most on-ice rivalries meant nothing off the ice, but never in all his years of being a medic at Centre Bell had he seen Hollander and Rozanov even exchange words when they weren’t playing.
“Is he all right?” Rozanov’ s deep, accented voice was uncertain. Not his normal playful shit talking.
Marc glanced up quickly before continuing his evaluation.
Ilya Rozanov looked…scared. There was no other way to describe it. It was weird. It wasn’t every day that Marc was called onto the ice or that a player left the game on a spinal board—which was going to have to happen today—but Hollander also wasn’t bleeding out or in immediate danger. So why…
“Mmokay.”
Marc turned back to Hollander at his attempt at talking.
“Prêt?” Jean asked.
Marc nodded. “We’re going to move you onto the spinal board now, Shane. Keep your head still, please.”
Marc and Jean each grabbed part of Hollander’s gear, ready to shift him onto the board. Except there was Rozanov, hovering too close to the board.
“Ilya, please stand back,” Marc said, trying to keep his voice neutral but sounding, he was sure, annoyed. Rozanov needed to let them work.
Rozanov took one hesitant step back as Marc and Jean lifted Hollander onto the spinal board and secured him.
“We’re not alone. Ilya, they can see us.”
Hollander’s voice was stronger now and what the fuck did that mean?
“Is he all right?” Rozanov asked.
Jean widened his eyes at Marc as if to say What the fuck?
“Tell him,” Hollander said quietly. “Tell him I’m fine.”
Marc raised his eyebrows and nodded at Hollander to indicate it was time to get moving. Whatever was happening between these two would have to wait. Even if Hollander wasn’t in immediate danger, they didn’t really have time to sit around and chat.
They got the spinal board onto the stretcher and rolled him off the ice. Their shadow followed them until they got to his team’s bench and then they were heading down the tunnel.
Marc didn’t look back to see what Rozanov’s face was doing because he was a fucking professional, but damn did he want to know.
“What happened?” Hollander asked.
“You took a blow to the head,” Jean informed him. “You went into the boards.”
“There’s an ambulance waiting,” Marc added.
Hollander’s eyes fluttered closed, then opened suddenly. “My parents. They’re at the game.”
His parents. Were they in their usual section? “We’ll make sure they know where we’re taking you,” Marc reassured him.
Hollander closed his eyes again.
“You need to stay awake, Shane. All right?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Can you move your toes?”
Jean, who had removed Hollander’s skates, gave Marc a thumbs up.
“Good,” Marc said and handed Shane Hollander off to the waiting paramedics.
They closed the door to the ambulance and stood watching as it drove off to the nearest hospital, lights flashing.
“So…” Jean said in French, “that was weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Think Rozanov was worried about losing his best competitor?”
Marc frowned. Rozanov hadn’t acted like a competitor on the ice. No, Rozanov’s demeanour reminded him of the panicked expression his dad had in his eyes when his mom had broken her ankle at a public skate a few years ago.
It was a ludicrous theory though, so he just said, “Probably.”
July 2018
“It looks like Ilya Rozanov is heading to Ottawa,” one hockey insider said in Marc’s earbuds as he stepped out of his house for a run. He nearly tripped over absolutely nothing.
Rozanov to Ottawa. That was...unexpected.
“Ottawa?” the other host asked. “Couldn’t he have re-signed in Boston?”
Obviously, he could have. Boston wouldn’t let him leave if they could help it. He was their franchise player. And it wasn’t like there had been any rumours of Rozanov not getting along with teammates.
“From what I heard, there were some negotiations with Boston. But it was Rozanov who approached Ottawa.”
“I don’t get it...” the second host said.
The hosts kept talking about what kind of strategy could possibly be behind the move.
Ilya. Shane Hollander’s broken voice said in Marc’s head, quiet but intense, as he lay on the ice.
Hmm.
We’re not alone.
Ottawa was pretty close to Montreal.
They can see us.
Maybe Rozanov’s decision wasn’t that odd after all.
Marc smiled.
March 2021
Marc looked up from his pre-work sandwich. “What’s up?”
“This is wild, man!”
“What?”
The last time Jean got this excited, he was watching a video of a kitten and a puppy playing, so excuse him for not jumping up. Jean was already sitting in the seat next to him, so it wasn’t like he had to move anyway.
Jean said, shoving his phone under Marc’s nose and pressing play on a video.
It appeared to be…Hayden Pike wishing someone called Brad a happy birthday? Marc would never understand why celebrities did this. Didn’t they make enough money from their regular jobs? Why did they need—wait.
In the background, two men were making out.
Was that—
“Hollander and Rozanov are really going for it,” Jean said. “Wild prank. Bet Pike was surprised.”
Rozanov’s panicked eyes raking over an unconscious Hollander flashed through Marc’s memory.
He looked up at Jean. Did he really believe this was a prank? He could understand thinking that if he hadn’t been on the ice with both of them that night four years ago, but Jean had been there.
Hollander’s weak voice had said, “They can see us. We’re not alone.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Marc said.
Let Jean and the hockey world think what they wanted. It wasn’t any of Marc’s business.
A week later
Jean: Did you see this this????????
Jean: https://www.instagram.com/shanehollanderhockeyplayer/29384
Jean: I can’t believe it!
Marc opened the link and an Instagram post popped up. Hollander’s and Rozanov’s faces filled the screen, close together.
He scrolled down to look at the caption.
Although having the decision to disclose our relationship made for us isn’t ideal, we would like to announce, officially, that we are in a committed, romantic relationship, and have been for several years. We wish we could have told you in our own way, but we don’t hold this unfortunate accident against Hayden.
We know that our relationship will be difficult for a lot of people to accept and understand. We have never let our personal relationship interfere with our competitiveness on the ice, and we believe our career achievements show that very clearly. We’ve always kept personal and professional separate, and we hope our teams, our fans, and the league can do the same.
Marc grinned. He knew it. He fucking knew it.
Marc typed and deleted the same text about four times. But he couldn’t out the two like that—even retroactively.
He’d keep it to himself. But he’d know in his heart.
I told you so.